Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Mar 11, 2024; 13(1): 90514
Published online Mar 11, 2024. doi: 10.5313/wja.v13.i1.90514
Bilateral pericapsular end nerve blocks for steroid-induced avascular necrosis following COVID-19 infection requiring bilateral total hip replacement
Somita Christopher, Sweety Dutta, Thota Venkata Sanjeev Gopal
Somita Christopher, Sweety Dutta, Thota Venkata Sanjeev Gopal, Department of Anaesthesiology, Care Hospitals, Hyderabad 500025, India
Author contributions: Christopher S and Dutta S designed and performed the research; Christopher S, Dutta S and Gopal TVS analysed the data and wrote the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Institutional Ethics Committee Care Hospital, No. IEC/CARE/22048/2023/PB.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided written consent prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict-of-interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at somitachristopher@gmail.com. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing. No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Somita Christopher, MD, Doctor, Department of Anaesthesiology, Care Hospitals, Flat No. 504 B, Amsri Central Court, Near Lancer Lines, Hyderabad 500025, India. somitachristopher@gmail.com
Received: December 9, 2023
Peer-review started: December 9, 2023
First decision: December 23, 2023
Revised: January 5, 2024
Accepted: February 25, 2024
Article in press: February 25, 2024
Published online: March 11, 2024
Core Tip

Core Tip: Avascular necrosis (AVN) of the hip was one of the dreaded complications of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which emerged in patients who received steroid therapy. Corticosteroids have been a mainstay in the COVID-19 treatment protocol. High doses of corticosteroids have shown positive results and have been lifesaving in many cases. Still, long-term consequences were AVN of the hip, which unfortunately affected young individuals. These patients were posted for bilateral hip replacement surgeries. Our study aimed to study the dynamics of pericapsular end nerve block to provide adequate analgesia to these patients for enhanced postoperative recovery and discharge. While epidural analgesia is the gold standard technique, it has several complications like hypotension, motor blockade and urinary retention.